Chapter 409: Flowers of Death and the Descent of Fate

“Huh?”

Lu Xin, making his way from the midst of the Death Flower below toward the Forest of the Dead, suddenly looked up.

He sensed that the mental radiation around him had changed.

Originally, he was using this method to understand himself and to practice the Seven Steps Theory—with tremendous results.

For instance, he had long puzzled over why his reactions to various abilities differed; some left a deep impression, others barely affected him, some lingered while others vanished in an instant.

Now he understood—it was because every person harbors seven flaws.

And his own manifestations in each of these flaws were entirely different.

At that moment, he was busy drawing conclusions.

But then, suddenly, he felt the surrounding mental radiation weaken considerably.

That ability which once brought him such irritation—even affecting his father and sister—vanished instantly, and the all-pervasive pain seemed to recede as though it had never existed.

……

Except for his toothache.

Toothaches were the worst—Lu Xin’s tooth itself no longer hurt, yet his gums were swollen.

The toothache was like a scoundrel; it stirred up the gum pain only to suddenly disappear, leaving chaos behind.

Only his aching gums remained, and his stomach continued to swell.

……

With his ability to be affected by emotion gone, even the sensation of pain faded away.

But Lu Xin then noticed that the Death Flowers around him were multiplying.

These Death Flowers, which had once shown their reverence by gradually clearing a path for him, now seemed to be driven by a force as they floated back in front.

And not just one—a countless number drifted his way.

They gathered densely, their numbers possibly nearing a hundred.

“What on earth is going on?”

Instinctively, Lu Xin tensed.

Mom walked up from behind him; as she moved amid the Death Flowers her form was bathed in a gentle, pale glow typical of mental entities—as if a master photographer were artfully arranging the lighting around her. Her beauty was almost unreal.

Every motion she made, whether walking or speaking, exuded an impeccable grace as she softly said:

“A desperate man will try anything…”

“Some people always believe that death can solve everything.”

“Yet sometimes they end up valuing their lives too much…”

“Isn’t that a kind of arrogance?”

“…”

Lu Xin could hear a hint of contempt—and something else—in her tone.

It was a warning to step back.

Mom was about to act.

She meant to teach him, not to send him to his doom.

In fact, he could already see what the Death Flowers intended.

They were being forced, by some unseen will, to drift in front of him and were beginning to show signs of instability.

These Death Flowers were, in essence, disparate mental entities that had been forcibly merged in a patchwork, unstable state—one that could easily lead to the annihilation of mental energy, much like the Mental Bomb he had once witnessed.

Once they began to vanish simultaneously, the resulting scattered mental turbulence could form a fearsome force.

Based on his limited professional knowledge, its impact should be equivalent to at least a twenty-unit overclocked ion cannon.

Whether he could withstand it, he wasn’t sure—after all, he lacked the relevant experience.

But Mom clearly wasn’t willing to let him take that risk; she had already moved in front of him.

So he quietly stepped back, joining his sister and father.

Preparing, as they joked, to watch the fireworks.

……

“Clack, clack…”

More and more Death Flowers floated around Lu Xin, gradually arranging themselves like cherry blossoms in full bloom—breathtaking in their display.

The sea of flowers was intoxicating.

Yet these flowers were not what they seemed—they were fused, pallid human forms, their features coming vividly to life in Lu Xin’s eyes, their mouths agape like water-deprived fish, blinking slowly like livestock on a slab.

Cracks began to mar their bodies.

The intermingling mental radiation weighed down the air.

Even Lu Xin’s thoughts grew muddled in that oppressive atmosphere.

If human thought were a machine, this intricate device was being hampered by overwhelming external forces.

Imagine an ordinary person in such a field—the sheer force of the mental radiation could strip away all thought, reducing one to a state of idiocy.

……

“I devote myself for the sake of Truth.”

“Paving the way for the descent of the True God…”

“Laying a path of corpses for eternal tranquility…”

“…”

In the Forest of the Dead, the Great Knight Shenze murmured softly as he slowly raised his hands.

With each movement, the fabric at his chest—already eroded by concentrated sulfuric acid—began to silently crumble.

This revealed his pallid skin and the array of mechanical rivets and rotating gears embedded within; in between, a dark red heart steadily beat, propelled by a delicate mechanical support.

“Crash…”

Behind him and in every direction, clusters of Death Flowers drifted toward a pit.

An eerie pressure field had reached the brink of collapse.

Below, Lu Xin and his family, gathered among the Death Flowers, lifted their heads as they awaited the burst of fireworks.

The Great Knight Shenze’s face showed a trace of yearning, his blue eyes flickering with a hint of excitement.

“Here, I call upon the True God to bear witness to my…”

His voice, filled with fervor and fanatic passion, was suddenly cut off.

Crack.

Without warning, the sound of helicopter rotors filled the air.

……

Two piercing beams of light suddenly slashed across the dark night sky, tearing through the gloom.

They arrived with great speed—at four or five times the pace of an ordinary helicopter.

The rotor noise was intense, hinting at a new kind of transport.

In just seconds, it had reached the air above the Forest of the Dead; then the helicopter slowed slightly, its door opened, and a black figure leapt out.

The Great Knight Shenze’s eyes widened in shock as he spun around.

He saw that the one who had jumped was a girl in a black skirt.

Her skirt, heavy and sumptuous, exuded a noble, otherworldly beauty.

Moreover, her stunningly beautiful face lit up the night as soon as she appeared.

Though she clutched an umbrella as she jumped, her descent was rapid—a fall that seemed doomed to result in a brutal, pulverized end. Yet, as she leaped, more and more onlookers were drawn to her.

Not only the Great Knight Shenze, but even the dead around him took notice.

These corpses, their white mental entities emerging and merging into Death Flowers, suddenly halted—as if gripped by a mysterious force—and turned their blank, yet fervent, gazes toward her.

“Swish…”

The girl’s descent gradually slowed, as if supported by an unseen power.

She hovered about thirty meters above the ground, her skirt billowing upward before gently settling back down.

The surrounding lights seemed to converge on her, illuminating her flawless face.

For a moment, she appeared as though a goddess had descended from the heavens.

Even the Great Knight Shenze found himself momentarily awestruck, forgetting his own mission.

But he quickly regained his focus.

Realizing that something was amiss, he hurried to complete his task.

Yet, he had not expected that as more dead eyes fixed on the girl, an increasing number of Death Flowers would also be affected.

At that moment, although originally gathering around Lu Xin under his command, more and more Death Flowers broke free and surged toward the floating girl.

It was as if, amid converging streams, a tributary had forcefully diverted in another direction.

Facing the onrushing tide of Death Flowers, the girl’s expression remained unchanged—she seemed impervious to panic. Quietly, she gathered the umbrella in her hand, aimed at a spot, and gently reopened it.

“Boom!”

The parasol unfurled with the sound of stretching fabric.

In that instant, an indescribably powerful mental impact surged forward.

Around Lu Xin, the countless Death Flowers encircling the Factory Building were shattered by the blast—pale fragments of mental entities were swept away before they could react, reduced to pure mental turbulence that dissipated into the sky.

The only consolation was that the tortured faces of these shattered mental entities ended in expressions of rapture.

Near Lu Xin, the ground turned black and wet.

It was as if a vibrant garden had been scarred by a deep, ominous furrow.

This burst of mental force greatly relieved the pressure surrounding him.

However, that woman seemed a bit out of it—she had helped Lu Xin overcome the crisis while neglecting her own safety.

The Death Flowers that had floated toward her were nearly upon her now.

At that moment, there was no time to retract or adjust the umbrella.

Fortunately, a slight figure landed from the helicopter just in time.

On closer inspection, it was a girl in a school uniform with a ponytail.

A rope was wound around her waist as she tumbled from the helicopter, landing right in front of the floating girl.

Then, with her slender little hands, she earnestly formed a hand sign.

She called out, “Du Tong Du Liu Hei Ke.”

As her voice rang out, the Death Flowers that had been surging toward the girl in black became disoriented—as if they’d lost their reason for coming—and flowed off to either side.

“Boom!”

Gunfire erupted from the helicopter.

A bullet, wrapped in a blue electric arc, shot out and obliterated a Death Flower.

Inside the helicopter cabin, a handsome man wearing sunglasses and clutching a long sniper rifle waved from afar, his face lit up with a brilliant smile.

“Hey!”